Daughter of Destiny (27 page)

"As far as we can tell, it
wasn’t the Goloths, sir," a young private at a computer terminal
announced.

"Nothing registered on any
of the normal electromagnetic frequencies. I’m checking the other
bands now."

Naia caught fragments of
various reports, which all had the same thing to say. No one could
identify the mysterious energy wave. People scurried from one
station to the next, checking and double-checking their
results.

Their escort strolled
briskly into the crowded chaos, plowing through the melee. Naia
couldn’t figure out how a giant like him could breeze through the
room while lightweights like Robert and she kept colliding into
people. Beside her, Robert let out a frustrated grunt as he
narrowly missed slamming into a young officer who darted right in
front of him. He made a shooing motion with his hand. Naia stared
in shock as a ripple of energy emanated from Robert and a path
opened up before them. The individuals in their way now stood
displaced to either side. Plenty of people stared about in
confusion, yet what baffled her most, some people appeared
oblivious.

A voice boomed down from
above, "Who in hell are you and what did you just do?" Naia looked
up at the man with the stars. He scowled down at them. The man's
short cropped hair was the color of steel, and he held himself with
a spine made of the same material.

Robert took her hand in
his, gave it a gentle squeeze, and then stepped forward. "I’m Dr.
Robert Sheffield. Sorry about the--" He broke off and waved his
hand vaguely, "--that. It was completely unintentional."

"Ever done anything like
that before?"

"Absolutely
not."

"Did you feel something odd
a few minutes ago?"

"Yes."

"Do you think the two
events are connected?"

Robert glanced back at her
and she offered a nod of encouragement. Robert said to the man in
brass, "I think it’s a reasonable extrapolation. Maybe an EEG or
MRI might give us some clue as to what we’re dealing with." He
glanced at her again and she nodded her agreement with his
guess.

"Well, at last someone has
come up with an idea. Get on it people!" He turned to a young woman
in a crisp uniform standing behind him. "You’re in charge of
selecting people for testing. I want results ASAP."

He shifted his attention
back down to Robert. "I'm General Westing. We’ve been expecting
you. Come on up here."

"Bossy isn’t he." Robert
said in a low voice only Naia could hear.

"He’s supposed to be," Naia
whispered back.

Naia trailed behind Robert,
content to let him take the lead for the moment. They crossed the
room and climbed a metal flight of stairs to the balcony. Their
escort repeatedly glanced over his shoulder. Fear tainted his
expression and his hand rested all too close to the trigger on his
gun. Naia swallowed a lump in her throat. What was he afraid of? He
was the one with the gun.

Standing beside Robert in
front of General Westing, an uneasy sense of premonition settled
over Naia. Like a fulcrum, on the right stood the frightened
soldier ready to attack, and on the left stood the stalwart general
ready to fearlessly tackle this newest threat.
Lucky me. I’m
smack dab in the middle.

An idea bounced around in
her head. What if the thing they felt was magic? A spell perhaps?
Nothing in her scientific experience could explain what Robert had
done, but what she knew of magic certainly could.

Just as the general opened
his mouth to say something, she blurted, "Excuse me, but I’d like
to try something."

The general stared at her.
"What?"

"An experiment if you will,
to see if I can replicate something similar to what Robert just
did."

"All right."

Naia closed her eyes and
using meditation techniques Katarina taught her, she focused on the
hum of energy inside her. True magic didn’t require fancy rhyming
spells or strange ingredients, but simple spoken spells often
helped the practitioner focus their will and achieve the desired
result. Aiming for something simple yet obvious, Naia opened her
eyes and her gaze fell on an old metal folding chair about six feet
away from her. She held her hand out toward the chair and
visualized a flow of energy from her fingertips to the chair. Going
with tradition, she recited a simple rhyme. "Chair of metal, here
you will settle. As I will so mote it be". The chair swiftly slid
across the floor and stopped right in front of Naia. "Well, whadaya
know?" Naia mumbled.

"What the hell is going on
here?" Westing asked.

"General, I think we have a
problem on our hands."

"I’m coming to the same
conclusion."

Naia gestured to Robert. "I
think Robert’s on the right track with the idea that the change is
in us somehow, but whether it’ll show up on the brain scans I don’t
know. The energy pulse, for lack of better terminology, did do
something. I know this is going to sound like superstitious
nonsense, but I think a spell of some sort was either cast or
broken."

"Why isn’t everyone
affected?"

"I don’t know. Maybe the
tests will show something."

The general exhaled a sigh.
"This couldn’t have come at a worse time." General Westing pointed
at her. He pointed his finger at their escort. "You're dismissed."
The solider saluted and headed back out the way they came in. "As
for you two, you will be joining me in Conference Room 1A where you
will explain the data on that computer." Westing turned to
go.

"You broke my
encryption?"

Westing glanced over his
shoulder. "Son, you used an encryption your company made at our
behest. We had the key."

Naia quirked up one
eyebrow. "Good one, Robert."

He shrugged. "Do you have
any idea how many clients we have? I can't recall who uses what
code at the drop of a hat. I picked the most complicated I could
key in without a computer."

"And you didn't think that
the government would have the most complicated one?"

"They don't
always."

Westing barked a laugh as
he swiped an access card and palmed a bio-reader. A light on the
reader turned green and the door opened. "Come on. I'll tell you
about our aliens if you tell us about yours."

***

Katarina left Zane's side
in the middle of night according to the ship's dim lighting. Her
internal clock argued that it was past time to get up. She cringed
as muscles complained about the night's sleeping arrangement. She
felt like she slept on a kitchen table. Worse, the twins' seemed to
be getting annoyed with the decreasing amount of space. The kicked
and jostled so much she barely slept.

"Damn. I swear, every day I
feel more and more like a beached whale."

She headed down the
corridor, a featureless metal tube that reminded her of a hamster
tube, stopping at the bunk area Vrion originally assigned to her.
"Less than two months to go," she reassured herself.

Her internal clock insisted
she supply it with caffeine, so she hunted for her satchel. She
found it by tripping over the satchel’s strap. "Way to go, Kat.
Break your neck while you’re at it."
Why in heaven’s name did I
put it on the floor?

She started to bend over,
but realized that her bulk no longer allowed her to do that
without. "Well fuck." It occurred to her to call the thing to her.
Katarina concentrated and very little energy expenditure the
satchel flew into her waiting hands. Katarina smiled. Well, at
least there one good thing came from all of this. She wouldn't have
to bend over ever again unless she wanted to.

Katarina put on a clean
dress, brushed her hair, and then made her way to the cockpit. If
her half-asleep brain insisted it was morning, then Naia was up and
she could find out what was going on back home.

When she got to the
cockpit, Private Driglok sat by himself playing some game on one
screen while another scrolled sensor readouts.
Sensor scan.
The immediate recognition threw her. Here in Zane's world the
memories he shared gained the crisp edge of reality as she
encountered things she shouldn't know, but thanks to Zane, she did.
No matter how often it happened, it continued to surprise
her.

"Excuse me, Private
Driglok, but I need to make a call to Earth."

The private started and
cleared his throat. "I’ll have to clear it with the
commander."

"I'm not asking. I’m
courteous. I didn't want you setting off the alarm and jerking the
poor Commander out of his sleep. If you recall, he gave me the
computer in the first place. If he didn't want me contacting Earth,
he wouldn't have done that."

A furrow formed on his
brow. She left him to muddle through her argument and returned to
the area off her bunk area. One wall held a small comm station.
Instead of a data link, she opened a live relay link and called the
computer she left with Naia.

***

After the shock of being
told the government knew all about the existence of aliens, Naia at
first assumed their news would be anti-climactic, but it still
stirred up a roar of opposing opinions. Despite the Roswell visitor
that died shortly after landing and warning the governments not to
trust any alien visitors, in Naia's opinion they did little to prep
for an invasion. Now the idiots wanted to nix a perfectly good
weapon. They refused to consider her arguments, despite her listing
all she knew about magic and referencing Maureen’s groundbreaking
ESP research in an attempt to convince the other scientists that
magic could be the best weapon at their disposal.

In a lull of conversation
the computer, which was set in the middle of the conference room
table, buzzed.

Westing pushed it toward
her. "Answer it."

Naia hit the accept button
as an engineer beside her turned on a recording device.

"Hello?"

Katarina's face filled the
screen. She swept a hand over her face before smiling. "Hey,
Naia."

"Did you find
Zane?"

"Yes, and I didn’t have to
hijack the ship. Of course, I'm going to have to get us out of here
before he gets executed. I don't put faith in the likelihood he can
talk his way out of trouble, not to mention I do not wish to be
IGC's fancy new toy." Katarina rubbed either side of her temples
and then looked up again. "How goes the other stuff? Karglock's
troops were not at the base when I went to get Zane. It stands to
reason he's already headed toward Earth."

Naia glanced at her
audience. "I'm sure General Westing appreciates that
update."

"You're with the
military?"

"Yes."

"Thank God. I wasn't sure
anyone would listen."

"Oh, they listened all
right. They took a bit of an exception to random transmissions from
space beaming to a civilian home."

Katarina stared for a
minute. "Yeah, I guess that would do it. I suppose it's a good
thing I forgot about that. Are they prepping for the
invasion?"

Naia looked at General
Westing. He nodded. "Yes, but they won't even consider using
magic."

Katarina winced. "It wasn't
just me?"

"Nope. So it is
magic?"

"Energy, magic, call it
what you want, but yes. Hit the hologram option, Naia."

"The what?"

Katarina closed her eyes.
"Second button to the left on the right panel."

Naia hit it and the image
of Katarina projected on the table in miniature. "Wow."

"Hello. IGCF is sending a
fleet to Earth from what I'm told. Whether they can make it in time
to intercept the invasion fleet, I do not know. You'll need a plan
to hold out until they show up. Then IGCF can take over defense.
Unless you have entire squadrons of Mages, I'd advise against using
magic. Without training it's unpredictable and
dangerous."

"But," Naia
said.

"General? Do you have
squadrons of Mages?"

"No, we do not. At best, we
can scrounge perhaps a dozen. The numbers of Mages who enlist are
not what they once were." Westing pointed at Katarina's hologram.
"I knew your father. Good man and a good Mage."

Naia gave Katarina credit.
She smiled and not one ounce of contradictory emotion showed on her
face. "Thank you, sir. I look forward to being home as soon as
possible. If I may, I'd like to seek political asylum for Zane.
He'll be more than happy to offer whatever services he can to aid
in the defense of the planet."

Westing glanced around the
table at the other officials and no one voiced disagreement.
"Asylum granted as soon as he sets foot on Earth."

"Thank you. Before I go,
may I ask what species sent a visitor in the Roswell
incident?"

"He called himself a
Dedanaan."

A flicker of emotion
passed, but Katarina's face smoothed to polite smile. "Interesting.
Thank you again. I'll see you soon, Fates willing. Ending
transmission."